


Flames

by AshenArrow



Series: Don't You Put Me On The Backburner [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (Briefly mentioned) - Freeform, (again), Angst, Avengers Tower, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Clint Needs a Hug, Coulson Lives, Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Mild Smut, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Pancakes, Past Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Phil Coulson lives, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Steve Rogers, Sleep, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:45:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7569391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshenArrow/pseuds/AshenArrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's favorite redhead is back and the spirits of the tower are high with the whole (minus Thor) team back together. Things get steamy on the range. Things are great until someone shows up and nearly sends them all spiralling back into mental instability, and he even has the audacity to ask for their help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flames

**Author's Note:**

> There is some slight (amateur-ly written) smut towards the middle. I tried, okay? It's hard, lol :)

Natasha comes back on a rainy Thursday morning. The sky was dark and it was raining so hard that Clint could even hear it in the safety of the Tower. Natasha appears on his floor and Clint startles when the elevator dings with the new arrival. She’s dripping wet from head to toe, her red hair matted and sticking to the sides of her face.

“Tash’-” Clint breathes and then stands from his spot on the couch in surprise. She looks exhausted and battered but overall okay injury wise as Clint comes closer to her. She has this awfully tired look in her eyes when they land on her partner and Clint recognizes it as the look they both know well, the one an agent has when they’ve been strung out for far too long.

“I’m back,” she says, an inside joke from back when they were barely more than junior agents and one or the other went on a mission and got back to S.H.I.E.L.D totally wiped out. They competed in seeing who could see it the most cheesy. 

“I can see that. I don’t think you can tell me where you’ve been this whole time?” he says tiredly, because, to be entirely honest, Clint is just so tired of S.H.I.E.L.D keeping secrets from them all.

Natasha rolls her eyes and begins to strip out of her Black Widow body armor, the blackness sticking to her like a second skin from the rain, Clint’s hands finding her gun holsters and unbuckling the one around her waist. He unstraps the ones on her thighs as she unzips the top part. Clint tosses the guns and their holsters to the floor beside them and turns back to find Natasha standing there, still slightly dripping onto his floor and wrenching her arms out of the black sleeves of the suit. She finally fights her way free and then lets the top part hang down from her waist like you’d see people in prison jumpsuits do on TV shows. 

The thing about Barton and Romanov is that they’re close enough that stuff like this isn’t weird between them. Strip in front of each other? They’ve had to do it so many times that it’s lost its weirdness. They were romantically involved for only a year and a half before they both mutually realized that it just wouldn’t and couldn’t work like that. They knew each other too well and teased each other too much for something like a relationship. Being friends that seemed to anyone outside of them like they were totally together and having sex worked best for them, and, as a plus, kept everyone guessing.

He laughs when she drops her head forward in exasperation, staring down at her legs. The pants would be the worst part, so he sits down in the puddle on the floor regardless of how the water starts to soak through his pajama pants. He starts by pulling on the fabric at her ankle, pulling down and continuing up the length of her leg while she deals with the other one. They finally manage to get the waistband down her thighs and the rest is easier from there. Finally, Natasha is standing looking down at the pile that is her tactical gear and suit on the floor, wearing nothing but a black sports bra and short shorts. 

Barton struggles but finally manages to pull himself to his feet, walking in the direction of his bathroom while shouting, “I’ll get some towels,” over his shoulder.

He comes back and Natasha has haphazardly folded the suit into a decent square and piled the guns and their holsters on top of it. Clint hands her a towel and helps dry her hair while she wipes down the rest of her body. He wipes up the puddle on the floor and tosses the pile of damp towels into the hamper in the bathroom. He comes back with a clean t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants for her and she accepts them with a thankful look.

When they both settle on Clint’s couch (and Barton has convinced Romanov to accept his blanket), Natasha sighs loudly.

“I’m not gonna keep this all from you,” she says, “Fury sent me on a deep cover mission. The whole time I was gone I was following some asshole who was working with an underground drug cartel that also turned out to be a group who were smuggling Chitauri weapons in and out of the country.” she explains. 

Clint grows still for a second at the mention of the alien army but forces himself to relax. Everything to do with New York seemed to set him off, kind of like when people asked Tony about the giant hole in the sky and how he flew a nuke through it. 

Clint knew this was blatantly classified information but it seems like titles like that haven’t mattered much since Coulson died. 

“So you helped take it down?” Clint guesses. Natasha shrugs.

“Easy peasy, but I spent a lot of the time getting in good with the leaders of the ring because from the outside it appeared to be nothing but a drug smuggling operation. Fury sent me to confirm, and, if necessary, terminate them if they were dealing with illegal alien weapons and technology. You know how S.H.I.E.L.D is, regular illegal things like drug cartels can be left for the PDs. Alien technology? S.H.I.E.L.D’s business.” she continues.

“So, that’s it? You’re back, now?” he questions. Hopeful is a way to describe how he felt, but he kept it out of his voice.

“For now. I think I might just deny any mission requests for a while. Sucks not having you around, though.” she jostles his shoulder playfully and he smile slightly before it drops back off face.

“Not cleared.” he mutters bitterly.

“Psych still has you benched? Assholes.” she hisses, shaking her head. 

Natasha was right. It had been a while since New York, and although Clint’s been through four psych evals, he has been turned away each time. The downtime was starting to drive him mad, and the thought that they’d never put him back on active duty and that he’d officially be worthless to everyone lurked in the back of his mind at every second of the day.

 

“I don’t know, Tash’, maybe they have a good reason to keep me on stand down. I did kill all those people and-”

“No, Clint. Stop right there, yastreb. Don’t you dare blame yourself for this, you know none of it was your fault.” she scolds him firmly for even suggesting the idea, her words taking on a slight russian undertone.

“Yeah, okay.” he says.

“No, Clint. I’m being serious. Are you hearing me, Clint? Did you want to kill all of those people?” she questions, forcing him to look at her in the face. He looks down and doesn’t say anything.

Truth was, it was a tough question. The Tesseract scrambles the brain and rewires the victim’s brain. Even Selvig has admitted later on that there was some part of the mind control that made those under the cube’s influence want to do everything they did, like they couldn’t possibly imagine doing anything but catering to Loki’s every need and want. Natasha sees the unsure glint in her partner’s eyes and shakes her head forcefully.

“You didn’t Clint. The artificial bullshit that Loki put in your head took away your free will. You told me yourself it messed with stuff. I saw you when you came back from it, and that was not the image of a man who was happy with what he had done. Stop blaming yourself, Barton.” she enunciates.

“Okay, Tash’.” he nods, making eye contact momentarily and then looking away. They’re quiet for a while and then they settle against each other. There are very few people in this world that Clint (and Natasha) are trusting enough to be so comfortable around, and now that they were both with their most trustworthy people, they were both suddenly very tired. Natasha, because she’s been awake for a month (not literally, but damn near close), and Clint because human nature (you yawn, I yawn).

They both fall asleep like that before Clint can talk himself into going to actual bed. Steve takes the elevator to Barton’s floor later on, and the sight of the twin assassins makes him smile before he turns and leaves them to it.

 

***

 

Breakfast with the Avengers the next morning is much more lively than it's been in weeks. They all talk loudly while Rogers mans the pan at the stove, cranking out pancake after pancake like it’s his job. 

“So, care to tell is where you've been all this time, Charlotte?” Stark inquires from across the table. Romanov raises an eyebrow at the nickname.

“Charlotte?” she teases before she brings her cup of coffee back to her mouth.

“Charlotte’s web? Spider? Oh, come on.” Tony sighs, exasperated. Natasha rolls her eyes but a small smile playing on her lips.

“Alright, alright. Well, I’m not at liberty to disclose exactly what I was dealing with, but I can say that I was gone for a long time, clearly. And it sucked. A lot,” she pauses, unsure if she should add more. Clint makes the decision for her, instead.

“Aw, hell,.” he rolls his eyes, glancing around the occupants of the table, “She put a bullet in the figurative head of a so-called drug cartel that also happened to be smuggling Chitauri weapons in and out of the country.” he tells them all the whole gist.

 

Natasha wants to be mad, she really does, but if anyone had the best gauge in regards to who they should trust, it was Clint. Natasha tended to go by the ‘trust no one’ policy, and so did Clint, but the rare time where he stuck a toe in to test the waters he had always determined correctly.

The rest of the team looks baffled and they all turn, Clint included, in Romanov’s direction to see if she was about to explode at the archer over ‘revealing classified information’, but she just shrugs and takes another sip of her coffee.

The tension dissipates and everyone laughs while Clint turns his gaze down to the pancakes before him. He looks over at the man behind the golden disks. Steve turns in Clint’s direction that very second like he had eyes in the back of his head and sends the archer a good natured smirk before returning his attention back to the pan. 

 

***

 

Breakfast had been over for about an hour and the only ones left on the floor at that point were Steve and Clint. Clint was helping the cleanup process along by unceremoniously dumping dirty dishes into the sink where the blond was attempting to rinse them off before placing them in the dishwasher.

It had taken nearly a year for the super soldier to become acclimated to all the new twenty-first century appliances, but Clint could confidently claim that Steve was much more able than he was fresh out of the ice. Dishwashers no longer flat out amazed him, which was progress.

Clint wipes the table itself down because, and he’s not really surprised, it was an absolute mess. There was syrup stuck to nearly every square inch of the surface which made him shake his head in amusement. The entire team was literally a group of children pretending to be adults. 

“We sure can make a mess.” Steve remarks, letting out a loud sigh as he dries off his hands and then throws the towel onto the counter. He leans backwards into the sink, gazing over at Clint who has finally managed to wipe the table free of everything sticky and gross.

“You could say that.” Clint laughs, finally stepping away from the table to momentarily marvel at his work.

Barton comes closer to the supers soldier and then wraps an arm around the blond’s middle, bringing his mouth close to his ear.

“I’m gonna go shoot.” he murmurs and then leans back, pressing a kiss to Steve’s cheek before grinning cheekily and stepping away. He goes to walk away but Rogers catches him by the arm before he can get very far.

“Wait,” he says, “I wanna watch.” and that’s how the two of them end up in the Tower gym, Clint stuffing a bundle of arrows into a quiver that he throws over his shoulder. There is a table pushed against the wall of assorted weapons and Steve is sitting on it, holding Clint’s bow. He smiles softly and holds it out to the archer who takes it.  
“I never have the time to see you shoot during missions, because, well, life or death situations.” Steve says as Clint rolls the bow back and forth in his hands.

“There's a first time for everything.” Clint smiles and then looks up at the ceiling like they all tend to do when addressing Jarvis, “Jarvis, can you set the course on the hardest setting?” Clint requests.

“As you wish, Agent Barton.” Jarvis acknowledges and Clint steps forward over the little lip in the floor and onto the range specific part of the floor.

 

It was a state of the art range, speaking easily. Tony most certainly did not cheap out on it. It wasn't just an archery range, though. It was built for guns, bows, throwing knives, you name it. The walls were some sort of holographic sorcery technology and the targets were these digital blue ones.

It started off easy and Clint took the time to warm up. It got harder and harder until the point where he was focused on nothing but the impending targets. Nock, pull, release. The targets exploded into millions of digital blue shards.

Finally, it got to the point where Clint couldn't handle more and they finally all ganged up on him. When one finally reached him it was game over, and a scoreboard appeared, projected on one of the walls.

“When Tony said he updated the range, I wasn’t expecting this.” Clint jokes as he wipes the back of his hand across his forehead. He had managed to work up quite a sweat.

“You still destroyed it.” Steve laughs and comes closer as Clint basically tosses the empty quiver at him.

“Help me pick em' up.” he commands and then lays his bow on the ground before taking a look at the ridiculous amount of arrows strung about the range. He leans over to start picking them up and his eyes widen when Steve smacks his ass.

Clint straightens and turns to Steve with wide eyes. Steve is giving him these innocent eyes and Clint narrows his eyes at the super soldier in amusement.

“So that's how it's gonna be?” Clint questions.

“Yeah. That's how it is.” Steve smirks. Clint launches himself forward quick enough that Steve doesn't expect it and topples backwards onto the floor. Clint landed on his chest and smirks down at the blond, sliding his thighs onto either side of his waist. He stares Steve down for a few seconds, gaze boring directly into his set of blue eyes.

He finally leans down and presses his lips to the super soldier’s. Steve makes a surprised noise and then they both melt into it. 

The kiss turns hungry and soon they're both grinding against each other. A choked off noise that Clint doesn't think he’s ever made rips its way out of his throat and Steve finally pulls away. They both stare intently at each other, panting and not breaking the intense sort of eye contact they managed to form.

“Should we keep going?” Steve breathes. Clint knows he’s referring to the suddenly apparent fact that they are sprawled across the floor of the public range and anyone could walk in at any time. But, there’s also the underlying question of whether or not Clint is ‘sure’, caused by the instance where Steve witnessed Clint lose his shit over things that happened years ago. 

Clint smiled down at the soldier mischievously but made sure it was genuine. 

“Who doesn't love a bit of danger?” he murmurs against Steve’s lips and feels the other man’s chest shake against his in laughter.

Clint parts his lips slightly to allow Steve more access as they start grinding against each other more desperately. They part briefly so they can fumble with the zippers on their jeans. Clint releases his own dick and then unbuttons Steve’s pants, reaching into the other man’ boxer briefs and freeing him, as well, smirking at the groan that it elicits.. 

Their lips meet again and Steve flips them over so Clint is resting on his back instead and grinds himself down onto the archer. They both hiss as Clint sticks a hand in between the both of them and grabs both of their dicks, stroking slowly but thorough enough that he's already feeling a ridiculous amount of pleasure pool in his gut.

“Clint-” Steve gasps and the archer shudders at the way the supersoldier says his name. 

“Holy shit,” Clint breathes, his breath hitching suddenly when Steve bucks against him, “,Steve.”

“God, you drive me insane.” Steve growls, pressing their lips back together fiercely, swallowing the sudden gasp Clint makes when the blond wraps his hand around the other’s. 

“I think-I’m-” Clint stutters against his mouth.

“Close, yeah,” Steve agrees, silencing the other man once more.

Their lips move against each other and Clint moves his free hand up Steve’s back and through the blond hair. His hand returns to his back and when Steve bites harshly at the archer’s lips he freezes and comes with his fingernails dug into the larger man’s back. Steve follows him directly over the edge, the sight of Clint unraveling beneath him too much for him to hold on any longer. 

Steve flips them back over so that Clint is sitting on top of him so as not to crush him. He chose right because the smaller man near collapses onto him, pressing his face into Steve’s chest as they both catch their breath.

“Aw, pants.” Clint groans after they've been laying there for what must have been half an hour, sitting up and taking in the sight of the sticky fronts of their jeans. Steve laughs as Clint tucks himself back into his pants and zips them as if it would hide the mess.

“Let's get back to my floor before we get caught.” he suggests and stands on slightly wobbly legs, holding out a hand to Steve.

Steve accepts the hand for more of the gesture than the help because in all honestly he would have pulled Clint down by accident if he used his full strength.

“Good idea.” Steve agrees. They stumble around, shoving the millions of arrows haphazardly back into the quiver as quick as possible. They are steps from the entrance to the gym before Clint stops suddenly. He looks up at the ceiling.

“Jarvis?” he whispers.

“How can I assist you, Agent Barton?” the AI replies immediately. 

“Can you make the last hour or two disappear?” Clint questions, hoping the AI knew what he meant. 

“Of course. It is already done.” Jarvis informs him. Clint smiles and Steve does too.

“Thank you, Jarvis.” Steve says.

“You are quite welcome, Captain.” 

 

***

 

“So, Cap,” Tony says from across the table. It was dinner time and the Avengers had decided they should share it together on the common floor because having all of them together at once was rare (well, minus Thor, but the guy had more important things going on back in Asgard).

“Yeah?” Steve replies.

 

“I couldn't help but notice a glitch in the surveillance on the range today.” Tony informs him matter-of-factly, cutting off a piece of his chicken and popping it in his mouth.

“Oh, how strange.” Steve says, covering up a gulp by taking a sip of his water as Clint cleverly avoids both of his their gazes, “why do you think that has something to do with me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tony shrugs, “it's just strange how the footage stops when you and Birdbrain over there are entering and starts back up when you're both already gone.” 

Clint meets Steve’s eyes briefly and then the both of them look away quickly. 

It's not like they’re ashamed of each other or anything. It's also not that they're afraid of what the rest of the team will think. It's more like they're both trying to see where the relationship will lead them. It was already pretty serious but they both seemed to be waiting for the right time.

“Maybe you should look into that, Stark.” Clint suggests, arching an eyebrow and sipping at a glass of coke. Tony squints at the archer and then the supersoldier but eventually drops it and the conversation around the table turns to a new experiment him and Bruce had been working on.

 

***

 

It was hardly a week later when they were all gathered like normal, yet under very different circumstances. 

Collectively, the Avengers that sat around the conference table down on the floor appointed for storing weapons and the conference room itself were all a little stunned. Okay, scratch that. ‘Little’ was a bit of an understatement. Or a huge one.

More accurately, everyone was blown away, because the man standing before them was most certainly not alive. Or, at least, not supposed to be. Phil Coulson had died that day on the helicarrier, they had all seen the footage. Even Clint’s seen it, the man who seemed to be carrying around all the guilt over the man’s death, has seen it more than once, in fact. There was no way someone could sustain that much damage and survive it.

Or, so they thought.

DId Fury think it was a good idea? The figure sporting the eyepatch looked indifferent under a carefully constructed mask of neutrality. It was clear that he was trying his hardest to keep his heart out of the order of the business that the two of them were there under. Phil looked uneasy and slightly queasy, but this reaction would be expected from the man who had been dead only minutes ago to everyone’s knowledge, the man confronting his team.

Or, Ex-Team, it would seem.

Phil is explaining quietly in a cool, even voice that he had a new team on what they called the Bus, and that he had been working with them for a while since he was somehow resurrected. The means of his resurrection, though, still seemed foggy even to him. 

The team’s emotions were quickly building under facades of simple disbelief. Really, it was varying degrees of uncontrollable rage, betrayal, and an emotion that Barton wasn’t sure existed. 

Tony was beyond pissed,. Steve had only known the guy for so long, but couldn’t believe that Fury and S.H.I.EL.D in general would keep something so big a secret from them. Bruce was slightly green around the edges, but he had enough practice containing it to be able to sit still. 

It was worse for the two who had been agents of S.H.I.E.L.D before the others on the team were even considered for the positions. The assassin duo had been with Coulson for at least ten years, a dynamic trio the three together had made. Natasha had a largely blank expression spread across her face, because it seemed that her world must be truly imploding. Barton, however, seemed worse off than the rest of them. He was stuck, watching this walking, talking, living, Coulson go on about how he’s basically replaced all of them, unable to comprehend it. He is convinced that he’s hallucinating, because he’s had this dream before, and he’s always woken up screaming. His hands shake where they rest clutched together in his lap beneath the conference table and the sudden urge to throw up appears and doesn’t dissipate. 

There’s a brief pause where Coulson stops talking, trailing off and finding himself at a loss for words at the sight of his past team, the team he had had for only so long yet loved all the same. His two agents, the ones who had been at his side for basically a decade, looked ashen and had the hollow look he remembers from when he had first met them both. Barton first, fresh from the circus and riddled with trust issues, and then Romanov, an arm around Clint’s shoulder and sporting a defeated glare. His stomach turns but he swallows and open his mouth to go on. He was there for business purposes. He had to be professional and then it would be over.

Except, things never seem to go right for Phillip J. Coulson.

“I’m here to discuss the need for the Avenger’s assistance. My team and I thought we could handle it, but the mission took a turn and-” he stops abruptly when he sees Barton stand suddenly. The archer throws a sickened glance around at the table where the rest of his team sat and shakes his head minutely. Then, he turns and walks out, not taking a second glance back. The rest of the Avengers watch him go, and then Romanov stands, too.

She casts an emotionless gaze Coulson’s way before stalking up right to the front of the room where the man himself stood. Phil really should have seen it coming, but he still finds himself surprised when she landed a harsh slap on his right cheek, the sound reverberating around the room, and then stalked out after her partner without a word. 

Fury sends him an unsurprised gaze but doesn’t say anything either. Phil touches a finger to his cheek and then lets it fall back to his side. Only Steve, Tony, and Bruce remain at the table, but the absence of the Hawk and Spider does not go unnoticed. Steve looks antsy, like he’s raring up to go and follow the assassins himself. Tony clenches his fists on the surface of the table and openly sends a death glare at the one eyed man in the black coat. Bruce’s eyes flash green but he reins it in quickly.

“How can you expect to waltz in here and expect us to be all on board with helping you with your new team?” he spits the part about Agent’s team on the Bus like the words are actual poison. Phil swallows, but Fury takes over at this point.

“The Avengers are a S.H.I.E.L.D oriented response team. We need your assistance with a S.H.I.E.L.D appointed mission.” he says cooly.

“So, what? We’re just supposed to accept the fact that Coulson is alive and no one told us? Do you know what group of people you’ve come to for help? I am sick and tired of being jerked around by S.H.I.E.L.D and only knowing what they want us to when it’s convenient for them. This may have worked if we were aware a year ago, but it’s far too late.” Tony crosses his arms and hisses down the table.

“So that’s it? You’re refusing?” Fury looks surprised. Steve opens his mouth but closes it. This was a tricky situation they were all in.

“Are we not going to address the elephant in the room right now?” Tony shouts, any forced semblance of control disappearing.

“Phil Coulson was stabbed through the heart on the helicarrier and miraculously revived later on. The Avengers needed a push, and look, you saved New York. By the time Coulson’s recovery was even a possibility you were all already under the impression that he had died. He was placed on a new operation which soon became the team on the Bus and it was easier to run covert operations with the only people aware were the ones on need-to-know. These people did not include you all until now.” Fury explains evenly, but he doesn’t feel completely indifferent to it all. He had wanted everything that had gone down to have gone down a different way, but life tends to throw curveballs at you. 

“We’re not considered need-to-know? We were his team. Barton and Romanov were with him for ten years. They should have been aware, at the very least.” Stark argues angrily. 

Now Coulson does look most certainly guilty, and Steve grows a little pale. Maybe he should have gone after Clint initially.

“Well, we can’t go back and change things, now, can we?” Fury sighs and Phil clears his throat.

“No, no. They’re right, Nick. It should have been handled differently.” Phil agrees and Tony sits back in his desk seat.

“Well, the fact of the matter right now is that there is a Hydra cell situated far too close to home for my liking and Agent’s team can’t handle it on their own.” Fury deadpans. Steve crosses his arms and then Tony sighs.

“Are they an immediate threat? At this very second? Because I’d prefer to run this op with the entire team on board.” Steve says flatly. Phil looks to the Captain fully for the first time since the meeting began and his guilt intensifies.

“Well…” he trails off and Fury finishes for him.

“ASAP would be nice. Tomorrow at the latest.” he says with authority and Tony winces. There really seemed like no way out. It’s not like they could just say no, this was their jobs. What kind of people would they be if they let Hydra take over New York City over something going on in their personal lives?

 

***

 

Natasha had followed Clint from the conference room and had been prepared for anything when she finally found him. Ever since Clint had made the call to not kill her and instead bring her in to be a S.H.I.E.L.D operative herself, they had this sort of arrangement where they both took care of each other. They were both varying degrees of fucked up, so it never seemed like one was worse off than the other. Nothing shocked them anymore.

She found Barton hidden in a linen closet off the hall to the armory, huddled tightly in a sort of ball with his back against the shelving unit. His hands were gripped tightly in his hair but he was silent.

Clint still believed that this was somehow some horrible sort of dream that didn’t want to end, or a hallucination his mind had conjured up to punish him. It had happened before.

“Clint.” Natasha breathed out, closing the door behind her and flicking on the light. She sunk to her knees in front of him and put her hands on his forearms. She squeezed slightly and his head whipped up. 

“Tash’,” he murmurs, “You look so real.” and Natasha tries her hardest not to looked panicked. She couldn’t remember a time where her partner had ever struggled with differentiating reality from fantasy. It worried her, because it just served to remind her of what he could have been dealing with while she had been gone.

“That’s cause’ I am real, Clint.” she speaks quietly because the last thing she wants to do is startle him while he's like this.

 

“No, no,” he disagrees with a clouded look in his eyes. She sighs lightly and brushed hair from his face.

“I didn't want to believe it either, yastreb. But it's..this is really happening, Clint. I promise.” she says firmly. 

“Are you sure? This always ends badly, Tash’.” he tells her with a wild glance around the linen closet as if the towels were somehow dangerous and offensive.

“What ends badly?” she asks softly.

“This dream.” her heart skips a beat and then she shakes her head slightly at him.

“This is real, Clint. Look,” she lets go and he watches as she counts all ten of her fingers out loud, “ten fingers.” 

The difference between a Clint who believes he’s either in another one of his fucked up dreams or some sort of hallucination and a Clint who is absolutely mortified is obvious and clear and Natasha watches the shift take place in front of her.

He pushes her hands away from him and then stares down at the floor with a set jaw. His throat works and he fists his hands to keep them from shaking. Natasha takes his hands back and clasps them in her own, and she manages to pull Clint into her body as the both of the shake against each other. They don't cry, though, because when one lives a life like the two of them have been living, they tend to get a little cried out. 

They lean against the shelving unit when the shivers finally subside and neither of the two say anything for quite some time.

 

“So,” Clint mutters, “Coulson.” it all still felt raw in a way, but he knew that he’d have to suck it up. Odds were, whatever was so important that the whole big ‘Coulson Death Scheme’ was ended really did require the Avengers’ help. He was almost certain that in one way or another they'd all end up working together, whether he liked it or not.

The guilt from indirectly getting his past handler killed hadn't exactly disappeared, but instead shifted. He may have not gotten him killed per say, but he had gotten him stabbed through the heart (literally) and that's still pretty awful. 

“Yup.” Natasha agrees. Neither of them make a move to leave the closet but they've been gone long enough that the meeting is probably over. Clint doesn't want Steve to worry, even though it seems to be the super soldier’s most common pastime. 

“We should get back.” Clint says and rocks forward onto the balls of his feet in a shaky crouch before standing completely and turning around to help Natasha up. She accepts his hand and follows him back out into the overwhelming brightness of the hallway. There had been a light in the closet, but the lights in the main parts of the tower were brighter and better.

“I’ll go see what’s up, you go see Steve.” Clint’s mouth falls open in surprise but Romanov just rolls her eyes, “I’m not dense, Barton. Plus, it’s hard to not know when you guys are sending those looks at each looks. The eyes on you two, I swear.” Clint shuts his mouth and sets his jaw before turning and walking in the direction of the elevator.

 

***

 

Clint appears on Steve’s floor where the supersoldier is pacing back and forth in front of one of the floor length windows of his apartment, occasionally running his fingers through his hair.

He looks up when he hears the elevator land and his face turns into a small semblance of relief at the sight of his hawk unharmed.

“Clint.” he says, and wraps his arms around the smaller man when he deposits himself into Steve’s chest. He's not crying or shaking which Steve is relieved about. He hates seeing Clint upset or in pain.

“Hey, Steeb.” Clint mumbles into the blonde’s shoulder. Steve manages a small bark of laughter.

“You're okay.” he says it more as a statement than a question. Clint pulls back but doesn't fully let go, nodding.

“I'm alright. Tasha' came after me, found me huddled up in a closet, convinced me I wasn't hallucinating like I thought I was. We’re both...okay. We shook it out for a little while.” Clint shrugs,   
“Whatever he wants it must be important, so how soon can we be done with it?” 

“Soon. It's Hydra. A group of them inside the city. It's too much for...them to take care of by themselves.” Steve informs him.

“Swell,” Clint jokes dryly. Steve shoots him a look.

“You're sure you're okay?” Steve presses. Clint nods again.

“Yeah, I’m- well, it's like, he's this guy I've had countless nightmares about watching him die at my own hand on a weekly basis. I've carried all this guilt around and all this time he was...here. Around, occasionally in the city,” Clint draws in a shaky breath, “It just doesn't seem fair. Or real.” he admits.

 

“It's not fair, you're right. But you don't have to take this mission if you don't want.” Steve tells him. Clint looks up sharply.

“Don't be stupid, Steve. I'm not gonna let my personal life get in the way of my job.” Clint nearly scoffs.

“Okay. Good. Kinda need you out there.” Steve confesses quietly. Clint catches his eyes and gifts him with a small, but real, smile.

“What now?” Steve inquires.

“We sit on the couch and watch Cutthroat Kitchen reruns.” Clint replies, pressing his face back into Steve's chest. 

“Sounds good.”


End file.
